Kisangani Dreams
by lemonjelly
Summary: Luby Set midseason 10. Luka, sick with malaria, comes home. Ch9: "The last time I felt anything other than sick was with you."
1. An Illinois Paradise

**Disclaimer: They're not mine**

**Spoilers: None past Season 10's "Dear Abby"**

**Pairing: Luby**

**Rated: T or PG-13, to be safe.**

**Summary:****Luby Set mid-season 10. Luka, sick with malaria, comes home.**

**So I've seen the Season 12 finale now and it was intense, wasn't it? Brilliant, definitely – one of ER's best. I can't wait until Season 13 starts. But anyway, yes, I said I would write this chaptered fic since that Luby standalone I wrote, ages ago. I guess my obsessive CSI-fic writing stopped this from taking off and, to be honest, I'm a bit stuck with this. So I thought I'd put it up and see if anyone was interested, and that maybe, hopefully, that'd spur me on to write.**

**Anyway, I've tried to get my malaria facts right and I hope you guys like it. Forgive me, if it's slow. Read, review – that would be nice. Enjoy! Love LJ xXx**

- o -**  
**

**Kisangani Dreams. Chapter One. An Illinois Paradise**

- o -

"_We should come home from adventures, and perils, and discoveries every day with new experience and character"_

HENRY DAVID THOREAU

- o -

This is the way to come home, Luka is sure of it. Private jets, helicopters and a pretty face by his side – Gillian holding his hand throughout the journey and intermittently checking his IV line. If it wasn't for the cold sweats, shivering, aching, slipping in and out of consciousness, this might've been the ideal trip. But as it was, he'd missed most of it. Save for opening his eyes to the curved plane roof, the shuddering helicopter ceiling and – once – blue skies, he had his eyes loosely shut the whole way, quaking within his own skin.

He'd missed it, too, when he'd been lifted, pushed, lowered, still on his gurney in and out of small aircrafts, across runways and through the musty corridors of small airports. He didn't realise when they crossed the Atlantic and hit some turbulence midway. He didn't realise the doctors' flurry of activity when his heart rate dipped and raced alternately for a while. And he didn't realise the inky lettering on the envelope tightly clamped under the dead weight of his palm, pressing her name into his chest – a smudgy backwards "Abby" imprinted on his once-white vest.

Air con.

Now that was different.

He wakes now to a different ceiling – level and white. Electric lights. And clean sheets.

Luka blinks his eyes awake. Gillian smiles at his bedside.

"Hi," she greets softly. His mouth stretches into a slow smile.

"Hi," he answers and looks dazedly around him. "Chicago?" She nods.

"Back at County," Gillian tells him with a grin. "The best healthcare around, so I've been told."

Luka croaks a laugh. "It'll do," he replies and sinks his head back into the pillow as Gillian shifts her chair closer.

"You were out for two days," she says. "You missed a lot of visitors – but they left their mark."

She waves a hand around the room and it's only then that he notices the get well cards plastered on any viable surface and all sorts of miscellaneous items supposed to contribute to his recovery, including a bottle of mosquito repellent that Luka guessed was some form of joke from Frank.

In the corner by the door, all packed up and ready to go, is a small black suitcase.

Luka looks to Gillian. "Am I going home?" he asks in confusion.

"You wish," she smirks and then hesitates before answering. "No, I am. Going back to Montreal. My boyfriend heard I was back..."

Somehow, Luka is not surprised to hear it and only smiles, closing his eyes again. "Complicated," he provides and Gillian nods her head.

"Yes. It's complicated."

And then he is asleep.

-

The next time Luka wakes up, the middle of night, Gillian – and the suitcase – are gone. He lies for a while in the darkness, considering the lack of emotion at her absence. Perhaps it was expected. Things were different there – different here; the same rules almost didn't apply.

It's late. His limbs ache but his head feels curiously clearer. And he feels tired. Tired, weak and thirsty.

A shadow flits past the blinds. Someone opens his door quietly and comes inside. Luka wants to sit up and see who it is but his neck complains at the movement so he lies still, attempting to swallow in his dry mouth.

"Are you a nurse?" he asks hoarsely, looking up at the ceiling as though for some kind of response.

"Yes." she says after a moment.

Luka coughs. "Could I please have some water?"

"Well," the nurse begins. "I _am_ off-duty, but why not?"

He recognises the voice, the tone. "Abby?" he voices into the dark.

"Hey Luka," she appears over him and smiles, holding a cup of water to his lips and helping him drink it. "How are you feeling?"

"Terrible," he answers when he's taken a sip of water. Abby laughs.

"Malaria will do that to you," she quips.

Luka grins again and sinks deeper into the hospital bed, shutting his weary eyes.

"It's good to see you again," he tells her in the silence. "I'm sorry that I was asleep."

"When?" Abby asks, confused.

"When you visited. I was probably asleep."

"Oh." she utters and is quiet for a while longer before confessing, "Actually this is my first visit. I haven't had the chance to get up here yet."

"Nice to know you care," he jokes.

"You know I do," she states. "I do care; I've wanted to see you since you came in, but I've been swamped with work."

Luka turns his head on his pillow to look at her. "You work too hard," he says decidedly. Abby shrugs her shoulders – still in scrubs.

"I need the money." She breaks her gaze away from him and studies her hands in her lap. "I've been thinking," she starts, almost shyly. "And I spoke to Kerry about it. But I was thinking that I'd like to go back to med school."

She looks up at him to gauge his reaction. When he doesn't say anything, she averts her eyes out of the darkened window instead. "It's stupid, I know – but I really wanted –"

"It's not stupid." he cuts her off firmly. "It's not stupid at all. You'll make a very good doctor; I always thought you would. I'm happy for you."

Abby beams; she hadn't spoken to anyone but Kerry Weaver about it, hadn't found the courage, somehow. She didn't know what she'd expected though – the worst, usually: scepticism and pity, perhaps? She should've known Luka would be supportive – he always was.

"Thank you."

Luka attempts to nod his head on an aching neck but stops, another thought, instead, occurring.

"Did you get your letter?" he asks suddenly. "John gave me a letter for you – I don't know where..."

"Gillian gave it to me," Abby interjects. "I got it." And on hearing the finality in her voice, Luka knows better than to press any further.

"It was not as though I didn't see it coming," she continues. "It was probably the best thing he could have done; we were more sick of ourselves than we were of each other. We needed to change – apart."

She looks at him, almost embarrassed to catch herself voicing this, and shakes it off. "It was over months ago really; I'm not angry at him, or upset. I'm not really anything."

Then she takes a breath and smiles. "Although I am so glad you're okay," she says to him, changing the subject.

He closes his eyes once more. "Me too."

She doesn't say anything more while he falls back into a deep sleep; she'll be gone when he wakes up, though he'll wake with the unshakeable feeling that she'd stayed through the night.

And as he sleeps, he dreams he's back on that gurney crossing the Atlantic in the small aircraft – alone. Delirious, he shuts his eyes to the vast blue stretching out from the windows on either side and remembers only the feel of paper under his palm. A letter with more confessions than a death row convict's repentance – in an envelope, tightly pressed to his heart. And four letters, boldly penned in someone else's handwriting, burning a name into his skin.

_Abby. _

Spreads a strange kind of warmth from his chest, where she's held, right down his fingertips and to his toes.

Luka Kovac's body begins to shiver as the fever takes a hold. He presses his hand even more strongly into his chest and, as he slips underneath the fresh wave of fever, thinks only one thought – Abby.

- o -


	2. The Great Escape

**Disclaimer: They're not mine**

**Spoilers: None past Season 10's "Dear Abby"**

**Pairing: Luby**

**Rated: T or PG-13, to be safe.**

**Summary:****Luby Set mid-season 10. Luka, sick with malaria, comes home.**

**Thank you very much for your kind words; I hadn't expected such an amazing response. So I'm thanking reviewers, Peaky, dragonflyfaith, 42-Sporks, HumanShield, Color Esperanza, RaspberryEarlGrey, xEllax, Laura, NaomiP, AgathaN, twinmuse, CarbyLivesOn, Becky and Sharon R. You really made me smile.**

**With relation to Luka's malaria, I've taken the fanfic-writer's regularly route of making things hard on him. There are a few different types of the plasmodium species which causes malaria and I just so happen to have infected my fictional Luka with one of the harder ones. I'm a nice person, really! Anyway, thank you so much for the reviews – I think I'll find my momentum for this story soon, hopefully. Enjoy! Love LJ xXx**

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**Kisangani Dreams. Chapter Two. The Great Escape**

- o -

"_And the greatest escape that you ever did make, with your arms by your sides, left it up to fate."_

RILO KILEY

- o -

107 degrees.

That's one hundred and seven degrees fahrenheit – a crucial nine degrees higher than it should be. Any of Luka Kovac's concerned colleagues who came up for a visit that day would've found him lost in another fever, shivering and hallucinating. They would also have found the nurses on duty exasperatedly shooing them out of his room, insisting that he had to be left alone to rest. And Luka's friends, the qualified doctors and healthcare professionals, would grudgingly oblige and instead hover outside, like scolded children.

Luka didn't know. All he knew was that it was very, very cold in here. And then too hot. And then cold. He found himself pinned down to his bed by sheets that were too tight but, after throwing them off in a fit of high fever, would scrabble for them back when he suddenly felt cold again, a few minutes later, and would wrap himself tightly in the sweat-soaked sheets.

The only thing he was really aware of was breaking fever every so often and feeling disappointed to find himself still in County General Hospital. He wanted to be home – or anywhere comfortable – away from the bustling strangers, from the other patients and from the overwhelming pristine white that stunned him whenever he chanced opening his eyes.

He wanted to go home.

-

"Mr Foster, I can't help you until you tell me what your problem is." Abby repeats, frustratedly as the nervous-looking patient shifts awkwardly on his feet on the other side of the triage window.

"I can't tell you," he mutters into his jacket, embarrassed. "Can't you just admit me?"

Abby rolls her eyes and sinks her head in hands. "No, I can't do that," she tells him. "Look – maybe you can just take a seat over there until you're ready to explain what's wrong."

He looks panicked and shuffles closer to the window. "That's kind of part of the problem," he confides mysteriously.

"What is?" Abby asks, trying her best not to let her irritation show.

"Sitting down..." he hisses and raises his eyebrows meaningfully. "I was just...trying something."

_Oh Jesus_, Abby thinks and, not really wanting to hear the answer, asks, "What exactly were you trying, Mr Foster?"

"It's a pepper mill." he says. "I...uh...lost it..."

_God help us all_. Abby swivels around on her chair to see which doctor is free, spying Dr Lewis picking charts out of the rack.

"Susan," she calls, beckoning her over. "This one's all yours." Abby presses a button on the wall, opening up the doors to the ER. "In you come, Mr Foster. Dr Lewis here will – uh – dislodge for you."

Susan shoots her a quizzical look as she takes Abby's notes but Abby is already heading off towards the lounge and to her locker. She takes a pack of cigarettes from her purse and catches Chuny on her way out of the lounge.

"Chuny, can you cover the cage for me – just for a second?" Abby pleads. "I really need a break."

"Sure thing, Abby," Chuny nods and notices the packet in her hand. "Heading to the roof? I thought you gave up smoking."

Abby shrugs her shoulders as she disappears down the corridor, towards the lifts. "I did," she replies and Chuny grins.

-

Chain-smoking: an ironic occupational hazard and the reason why Abby found herself now alone in an elevator, slowly making her way up to the roof. It slowed to a halt on the fifth floor, when the doors slid open on both sides and two doctors stood on either side of her, a patient-laden gurney each.

Abby blinks a couple of times, glancing first at the doctor on her right, and then on her left. There was no way they'd all fit in here.

"A chopper's on the roof waiting for transfer," the doctor on her left spoke up.

"Well this kid's gotta be in surgery, right now," countered the doctor on her right.

Abby held up her hands in submission. "I was going to step out – calm down," she snaps. Jesus, sometimes these doctors didn't even give you a chance to explain yourself. She tucks her packet of cigarettes into her pocket and away from their reproachful stares as she slips out of the elevator door to allow the two gurneys through.

Rolling her eyes as the elevator doors sigh shut, Abby makes to press the button and call another elevator when she stops, seeing a familiar face lying pale in his bed across the ward, through a window. Forgetting all about her nicotine fix, Abby ventures over to his exam room. Luka's doctor – a Dr. Petersen – is in the room, doing rounds and making further notes in his chart when Abby quietly pushes open the door.

"Hi," she greets. Abby stares at Luka – sweating, trembling and muttering garbled words to himself. "How's he doing?"

Dr. Petersen glances up from the chart and flashes a quick smile at Abby, "Well he's had a bit of a relapse into fever, actually. He had been recovering steadily before that, though."

Abby nods and moves closer to Luka's bedside. When she reaches for his hand, she can feel the skin burning beneath her fingertips and he grabs her hand tightly, shivering.

"Luka?" Abby attempts to get an intelligible response.

"He hasn't been all too coherent lately," Dr. Petersen warns her. "His fever's spiked; otherwise we would've been looking to send him home. He'd been asking to go home pretty much ever since he got here."

Abby grins at Dr. Petersen. "Yeah, that sounds like Luka."

And then suddenly her attention snaps back to Luka as he pulls on her hand.

"Abby," he speaks up out of the blue. She leans closer, crouched by his side.

"Luka? Can you hear me?" Abby asks gently. "I just dropped by to see how you were doing."

"Home." Luka went on. "Home – take me home."

"The doctors are looking to discharge you in a couple of days, hopefully," she tells him, encouragingly. "You just get better."

"No – you. Take me home." Luka stutters out, shaking harder. "Abby – please?"

Abby looks at him hard, gripping her hand, and then turns to Dr Petersen, standing closer and interested in Luka's progress.

"Could I?" Abby asks him, hesitantly. "Could I take him home?"

Dr. Petersen looks between Luka and Abby for a moment.

"His temperature is 107. He needs to be on IV chloroquine and fluids – it's not wise to just send him home," Dr. Petersen answers sharply.

But Abby found herself arguing back before she even knew it. "All he needs is time – we see this in all of our malaria patients. You know that. This is a bed you can spare," she reasons. And then starts to bargain, "I'll take time off work. I'll start his IVs and monitor his stats; I do all of these things a thousand times a day."

"Abby – he'll need constant monitoring and care," Dr Petersen replies. "It's no small task."

"Believe me, Dr Petersen," Abby says firmly. "I've taken on bigger."

Dr Petersen shifts back on his feet and looks her in the eye for a moment or two. He's beginning to relent – she can see it.

"This isn't a question of your capability, Abby," he tells her. "I'm just not entirely comfortable with sending him home like this."

Abby pauses. "And if his fever drops?" she prompts. Dr Petersen keeps staring hard at her. She was not gonna give up easy, he could see – and he did really want to get his rounds finished by noon.

"103." he says finally. "It has to be at a steady 103 before I let you take him home today. And you'd better sort out your leave – I'm not having this all up in the air. And you have to promise me you'll bring him right in if you encounter any difficulties – and I mean anything. Don't keep him at home and hope you can fix things yourself."

Abby beams. "No, of course not – definitely," she nods eagerly along with Dr Petersen's list of commands. "I promise."

Dr Petersen chances a smile at her. "Dr. Kovac made some good friends downstairs, I see." And Abby returns the smile as Dr Petersen leaves the exam room.

"Luka," she murmurs softly. "Luka, I'll take you home. Just try and fight this down today. Just try and cool down."

A shaky smile spreads onto Luka's ashen face and he releases her hand finally, letting his arm drop heavily onto the mattress. His eyes are shut tightly but he still manages to whisper out a thank-you as Abby reluctantly returns to her shift, having long since forgotten about her cigarette break.

As she heads back down in the elevator towards the ground-floor ER, up on fifth, in his hospital bed, Luka Kovac's digital monitor at his bedside bleeps a couple of times in the silent room. 107 degrees fahrenheit makes a dip down to a steady 106. One down. Three to go.

- o -


	3. For Better Or Worse

**Disclaimer: They're not mine**

**Spoilers: None past Season 10's "Dear Abby"**

**Pairing: Luby**

**Rated: T or PG-13, to be safe.**

**Summary:****Luby Set mid-season 10. Luka, sick with malaria, comes home.**

**I sat down and wrote another chapter in one day. Your reviews have been fantastic – thank you to Zan1781 (thanks! I'm a little quotation-obsessed), Breakthefloor22, Carol, CarbyLivesOn, Andy2301, AgathaN, 42-Sporks, xEllax (no problem! Look, here's another one!), Luka-Kovac, Peaky, Color Esperanza, twinmuse and Becky. Also special thanks to Faith for your input – I read it carefully and am thinking it over. I will reply and I will also look to offer an explanation further on in the fic – bear with me.**

**So thank you for the encouragement your reviews have given me! I'll try to reel chapters out faster. Enjoy! Love LJ xXx**

- o -**  
**

**Kisangani Dreams. Chapter Three. For Better Or Worse**

- o -

"_Love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is done well."_

VINCENT VAN GOGH

- o -

Kerry Weaver drums her fingers on the surface of her desk. She flicks through the ER staff rota and then drums her fingers on the desk some more.

"Well..." she says. "Well."

Abby resists the temptation to tell her to hurry the hell up. _Well what? What!_

"Well – you're lucky that your decision to rejoin as a medical student meant that I've already secured a replacement Nurse Manager," Kerry goes on, eventually. "She seemed very eager, so I don't think it will be a problem, asking her to start sooner."

"Oh – that's good." Abby finds herself saying_. A simple 'yes' or 'no' would work just fine, really._

"Yes, it is," Kerry continues. "And I'm sure there'll be plenty of med students out there jumping at the chance for a placement at County – so it won't be a problem in that respect, either."

_But...? _Abby senses a 'but' coming up here. She wishes Weaver would just get to the damn point. Can she take a leave of absence or not? She glances at the clock briefly. Dr Petersen told her he'd meet her at 5.00pm to review Luka's situation and possibly – hopefully – discharge him. It was 4.55 and counting.

"But, the thing is, Abby," Kerry says – and Abby knew it. She knew she'd have something to say on her decision. "I'm concerned as to whether you really know what you're getting yourself into. Are you sure you're making the right decision? I mean, you had plans all set up to return to medical school and now they're gone – in a day. Don't you think you ought to take some time to think this over and not just jump right in?"

Abby looks at Kerry's cynical expression, wondering how much convincing she'd take.

"I know it sounds impulsive but I'm sure that this is what I want to do right now," Abby tells her earnestly. "I know that going back to medical school will have to be put back a year or so – God knows I probably need that time to get enough money in the first place. I just really feel that this is the right thing for me."

Weaver studies Abby's face closely – Abby had always been pretty sure of herself in the past; it's not as though she gave Kerry any reason to doubt her certainty in this. But then again, another thought comes to mind.

"Abby – this isn't about John, is it?" Kerry puts forward as delicately as possible.

"Carter?" Abby sounds incredulous. "No – no, not at all. I don't see what this has to do with him. No, nothing like that. It's just looking after a friend. Luka needs someone right now and I'd like to be that person." She pauses. "He _asked_ me, Kerry."

Kerry sits back in her chair. _4.59, _Abby thinks nervously.

"Well then, Abby," Kerry says finally. "Then I'm sure you're making the right decision. You can take a leave of absence, that'll be fine – and there'll still be a place for you when you come back – nursing or med school."

Abby's face splits in a broad smile. "Thank you, Kerry."

"No problem," Kerry smiles back and gets up at the sound of her pager. "You look after Luka – we'll need our attendings back on the floor here as soon as possible."

And with that, Kerry shakes her hand briefly and leaves. Abby can't wipe the smile off her face – things seem to be falling into place more easily than she'd thought they would. Her eye catches the clock on the wall – 5.02 and, remembering, Abby jumps up, dashing out and up to the fifth floor.

-

Abby reaches Luka's fifth floor room at five past five, breathless and hoping she hadn't missed Dr Petersen already. That guy was already hard enough to win over without her being late. He's nowhere to be seen and Abby hovers anxiously by the malaria-stricken Luka's bedside. What if her lateness gave Dr Petersen the time to reconsider? What if he kept Luka in? _What if what if what if?_

Remembering her deal, she glances up at Luka's monitor. It bleeps once and descends yet another painstaking degree. From 103 to 102. Luka had reached and then surpassed the temperature he needed to be allowed home. And Abby had an IV stand packed up in the trunk of her car, along with a set of hypodermic needles, alcohol wipes, syringes and saline.

They've kept up their end of the deal – both of them – but still, Dr Petersen had to sign off on Luka. Abby paces nervously around Luka's bed, fighting a losing battle to keep negative thoughts from dancing through her head.

"You've got to relax a bit, Abby," a familiar voice comes from the doorway. "Or I might have to reconsider."

Abby spins around to see Dr Petersen standing on the threshold with a small smile on his face.

"I'm sorry I'm late," he apologises. "I hope you haven't been waiting too long."

"No, not at all. I was sorting out my leave anyway. Everything's worked out," Abby answers with a tentative smile. "So… Luka's temp's 102."

Dr Petersen moves to the foot of Luka's bed and picks up the chart. "Yes, I know," he replies. "The nurse on duty came and found me when he reached 103 at about half past three. He made astounding progress."

Abby smiles slightly at the pale, semi-conscious Croatian in bed. "Well, he really does want to go home."

Dr Petersen nods and scribbles down a prescription. "Then I suppose today is his lucky day," he says to Abby and tears off the prescription for IV chloroquine and Mefloquine, handing it to her.

"Are you saying…?" Abby begins, taking the prescription from him.

"Take good care of him, Abby," Dr Petersen confirms. "Call me any time of the day or night if you hit even the slightest bump on the road."

"Yes – yes, I will," Abby grins eagerly. "Thank you, Dr Petersen."

He shrugs his shoulders. "No problem – let's hope you still feel that way in a week or two," he smiles, turning to go. "Do you want me to call up the porter?"

Abby glances at Luka and then back at Dr Petersen. "No thanks," she tells him. "I think we'll be okay."

Dr Petersen nods once more and then leaves the room. Abby stands there for a moment and then kneels by his side. Her hand moves automatically to his cheek – his skin is still hot despite his drop in temperature.

"I'm going to take you home now, Luka," she whispers to him. His eyes flicker blearily – open and shut, then open and shut again.

"Abby…" he utters hoarsely. "Abby. Thank you."

"It's okay," she says softly. "It's okay. I'm gonna take you home."

- o -


	4. Closer

**Disclaimer: They're not mine**

**Spoilers: None past Season 10's "Dear Abby"**

**Pairing: Luby**

**Rated: T or PG-13, to be safe.**

**Summary:****Luby Set mid-season 10. Luka, sick with malaria, comes home.**

**Sorry updating took so long – I think I've got a real roll on this story though, now. I mean, I think I could get through it pretty quickly. Especially since school's finished now. Hurrah for that indeed.**

**But look at me, talking about myself when I should be thanking y'all for the reviews (how slick was that transition? Slick, no? It was slick) – I'm thanking Zan1781, 42-Sporks, Breakthefloor22, Jemiul, Peaky, Andy2301, Kat.D, CarbyLivesOn, Bianca, xEllax, Heart Sewed Back Together and Color Esperanza (no problem! It's always nice to get reviews and it reminded me how long it's been since I updated. I hope you had fun on debate camp!). So here is my offering for now – thanks for the continued support. Enjoy! Love LJ xXx**

- o -**  
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**Kisangani Dreams. Chapter Four. Closer**

- o -

"_I have learned that to be with those I like is enough."_

WALT WHITMAN

- o -

He finds himself in her bed before he can even think to protest and all the things he wants to say to her, "_You don't have to_" and "_I'll sleep on the couch_", don't have the momentum to pass his lips.

"Couch," he says instead, from where he lies in her bed.

And – "Abby."

Luka watches her wearily as she makes space in her bedroom for the IV stand and medical supplies. Abby raises an eyebrow.

"Yeah," she answers coolly. "Nice try." She flits to the curtains and draws them shut when he closes his eyes. "When you can walk to the couch by yourself, you can sleep there."

Luka laughs and she smiles affectionately at him.

"Tomorrow." He tells her.

Abby grins, setting up the IV stand beside the bed. "You wish," she replies, hanging a unit of saline on the stand. "It's gonna take a lot longer than that for you to regain your strength." She uncoils the length of snaked IV tube.

"Arm."

And Luka, without even opening his eyes, lifts his dead weight of an arm – heavy on the end of his shoulder – and moves it nearer to Abby. She looks at him – beads of sweat beginning to form at the top of his forehead and his closed eyes – dark lashes. She remembers when she used to wake up beside that face in the mornings and in the night, remembers turning to him and seeing him asleep – and the feelings: resentment, sometimes; anger, towards the end.

But at the beginning, it was only love. Or was it lust? Differentiating between the two was never a strong point of hers and it landed her, several times, into a messy world. Staying with John Carter so damn long, for one. And marrying Richard.

She rolls her eyes at herself. She was a relationship wreck.

Never mind.

When she shakes herself back to the present and reaches for Luka's arm to deftly fix the needle into the crook of his elbow, she feels his skin – hot and soft beneath her fingertips.

-

Luka had slept, then, and Abby moved silently through her apartment, checking on him every ten minutes or so. She'd flicked through the TV channels but muted it so not to wake him up and she'd tried reading something, but found she couldn't sit still long enough.

So she sits now on her bed, beside a sleeping Luka, and flips through an old copy of the Academic Emergency Medicine Journal from last December, not really taking it in. It'd been delivered to Dr. Luka Kovac but, glancing across at his pale and exhausted figure, she guessed he wasn't much up to reading right now.

In between reading about some kind of winterish injury, Abby glances over to Luka and watches when his eyelids start to tremble and flicker. A frown darkens his forehead and Abby puts down the journal. She sits there, frozen, and watches.

He mumbles something – something indistinct, Croatian maybe. And he frets between the sheets, a heavy frown on his face. A bad dream, Abby thinks, and he begins to cry out to someone.

"_Pomognem – neko_."

She wonders what she should do. Should she wake him up?

Abby shifts on the bed and leans towards him – the Academic Emergency Medicine Journal splayed, open on a trauma case with a snowmobile and a twelve-year old, forgotten across her lap. She reaches a hand to his burning cheek and gently touches his face, wanting to say, "_Wake up, Luka – it's okay_." Her throat won't make the words, though, and in the end, she just does nothing.

-

He wakes with a start, half an hour later and opens his eyes to her white ceiling. Abby sees his eyes blink a few times and puts down the journal – a quiet rustle of pages on the bedclothes.

"You reading something?" he asks hoarsely, his mouth dry.

She shuffles closer to him, "Just some old edition AEMJ. Something about Christmas-themed accidents; I don't know."

Still blinking at the faceless plaster above his head, Luka mouths words before finding a voice to make them – "Christmas Eve," he says. "The first time after Danijela and the children died, I remember going out and getting very drunk by myself."

Abby sits very still, a foot away from him on the bed. She barely breathes and certainly doesn't speak – as though caught watching something she shouldn't – Luka, bare. His eyes stay fixed at the ceiling, observing tiny cracks in the paint. His neck was far too achy to move his head; his head, far too heavy to move anyway. He'd dreamt, this time, much further back.

"I was staying in a…hotel. And I went to a bar – to one of those places full of ladies, dancing. No clothes," he smiles wryly at himself, in spite of it. "And I drank a lot, as though it could fill me up. I woke up in some woman's apartment – I didn't know who she was. I think I'd paid her. It was Christmas Day and we made toast for our Christmas dinner because we couldn't really make anything else."

A network of small cracks and chips in the white paint above his head – and a dusty spider's web in the corner.

"We sat on her couch, in front of the TV, and ate toast with…uh…jelly," he went on. "And then I cried. Felt…stupid – lonely. I think I paid her double after that. It was all just so wrong and empty. She offered to sleep with me again, free this time, if it'd make me feel better. Because it was Christmas, she said."

He finds the energy to turn his head after that, and look at Abby. He offers her a smile.

"My first Christmas in Chicago was better," he adds lightly and grins. Abby returns the smile uncertainly and pours him a glass of water, guiding the tip of the drinking straw to his lips.

She studies his expression carefully as he takes a sip

"I need to learn how to cook properly," she decides out loud. Luka looks at her when she says this and suddenly wishes his arms weren't so leaden, weak.

He is sure that if they weren't, he'd have pulled her close to him, then.

- o -


	5. Sky And Water

**Disclaimer: They're not mine**

**Spoilers: None past Season 10's "Dear Abby"**

**Pairing: Luby**

**Rated: T or PG-13, to be safe.**

**Summary:****Luby Set mid-season 10. Luka, sick with malaria, comes home.**

**And again – brilliant reviews. So I'm thanking Peaky, Breakthefloor22, Color Esperanza, xEllax, Faith (thanks for giving me another try!), 42-Sporks, Kat.D, CarbyLivesOn, AmYkYo, Bianca, Liz and anonymous01. I hope you're all having a great summer! I'm heading over to Chicago at the end of this month, so any recommendations of places to go would be very cool! **

**Thanks again for the reviews – they really do help me write this thing. Enjoy! Love LJ xXx**

- o -**  
**

**Kisangani Dreams. Chapter Five. Sky And Water**

- o -

"_So God made the expanse, and separated the water under the expanse from the water above it. And it was so. _

_God called the expanse 'sky.' And there was evening, and there was morning—the second day."_

BOOK OF GENESIS, THE BIBLE

- o -

On the second day under Abby's care, Luka pulls himself sitting and places two bare feet shakily on the carpet by the bed. It feels strange to him and he blinks – dizzy as the blood rushes from his head to his feet. A couple of unsteady breaths move the warm air past his lips, to his lungs. He is stronger today, he is sure of it; but he doesn't know if he's strong _enough_.

Luka shakes his head, determined. No – he shouldn't think like that. He should concentrate, instead, on what he _does_ know. And he knows that his head feels a little clearer today. He knows that it's Thursday and that Chicago outside is stuck in a clammy, hot summer. And knows that he can hear Abby on the phone in the kitchen.

So he concentrates on that – on Abby's voice not too far away. He takes in another breath and pushes himself up to standing.

He sways for a moment, on his feet. His legs feel like rubber barely holding him up, but he frowns deeply and wills his feet to take a step. And he does.

A brief smile crosses his face – his eyes fixed at the bedroom door, his ears listening intently to Abby's voice.

"No, no – I don't need the loan anymore," Abby's exasperated voice snaps. "Yes – I want to cancel it… No – well – what?"

She sighs.

"Fine, I'll hold."

Each step he takes, he finds his mind telling him strategically, will take him just that bit closer to Abby. And if he can make it there, he'll get better. He'll be fitter and stronger and he'll get better. Still, his head spins a little and a fuzzy cloud of darkness swells and ebbs in a border around the world.

A few more steps. He pictures her, sitting at the kitchen table, scrawling subconscious doodles onto a stray piece of paper with a black biro. She rolls her eyes, maybe – sweeps her hair back from her face.

A few more steps.

"Hello -? Yes, that's right… Abigail Lockhart."

Luka reaches out a hand and grabs hold of the door handle – cold metal certainty. He grins to himself through gritted teeth and leans for a moment against the door.

"…to cancel my loan. $10, 000."

He breathes some more, feeling sweat run over his eyebrows and down his neck. He blinks saltwater from his eyes. Abby will be behind this door. Sitting at the kitchen table – biro in hand. A few more steps. A-few-more-steps.

"No – no, I haven't…" Abby sighs again. "Well, could I speak to… what? Yes. Yes, that's right."

He turns the handle heavily and uses all his weight to push the door open, almost falling into the kitchen-living room. Abby sees him coming through the door and jumps up in horror, dropping the phone and black biro onto the kitchen table as Luka staggers in.

"What the hell are you doing?" Abby demands, rushing to him and helping him in those last few steps to sit down at the table.

Luka only smiles broadly at her aghast expression.

"Going for a walk," he answers simply. Abby stares at him in disbelief.

"Christ, Luka!" she exclaims. "Why didn't you call me? You can't go walking around like this – you're not strong enough yet."

"But I did it, didn't I?" he points out cheekily. Abby sighs, shaking her head and returns to her seat opposite him, shuffling away the papers and phone.

"You know, it's true what they say," she comments lightly. "Doctors really do make the worst patients."

But Luka only grins at her and when she chances a smile back at him, he knows she isn't really serious – just worried. He nods towards the phone.

"What was that about?" he asks her, changing the subject. Abby avoids his eyes though and waves a hand dismissively.

"Oh, nothing," she brushes it off. "Just some stupid little thing at the bank. It's fine." She gets up. "Let me run you a bath," she says and has disappeared off to the bathroom before he can even respond.

When she's left the room, Luka glances at the papers on the table and her distracted doodles on a letter from County:

_Dear Abigail Lockhart,_

_Thank you for your letter. You have successfully withdrawn from County General Teaching Hospital's medical training course, beginning September 2004…_

Luka pushes the letter quickly away as he hears Abby comes back into the room.

Of course, she was going to go back to medical school. He remembers her telling him, that night back at County and she'd been happy – excited. And now…

"Just promise me you won't try anything like that again," Abby says, pouring him a glass of water and setting it down in front of him. "You could've passed out or fallen over or something."

And Luka can't think of anything else but how Abby had told him about going back to med school the other night, and the smile that lit her face when he'd been supportive.

"I promise," he hears himself say and numbly watches her smile again.

-

Maybe it's because he's still feeling that numbness of not knowing what to think, that he is obliging and distant. He doesn't seem to even notice being helped back towards the bedroom, through to the bathroom. His body feels Abby's arm around him, his weight heavy on her shoulder, but his mind doesn't seem to register.

And when she's standing in the bathroom – steam already misting onto the windows and tiles – when she asks him, "Do you need me to help you with this, or would you rather I left you to do it yourself?"

He says, "No – stay," before he can even think about it.

So Abby nods her head and sits him carefully on the edge of the bathtub. He looks at her as she begins to unbutton his shirt – from the open collar, down – with a serious look on her face. He remembers when they used to unwrap each other all those years ago – but this was different. This was professional, objective – not like they used to, in the semi-dark, frenetic and passionate.

"My arms and legs," he starts quietly, for want of a neutral conversation. "They feel like Jell-O."

Her lips turn up in a smile as his shirt falls softly to the floor. She notices shadows of his ribs across his chest and his skin close on his collar bones – though she can still recognise the contours of his body that once lay beside her, he's thinner now – weaker. He looks almost vulnerable sitting there perched on the edge of the tub. It's this distressing fragility that makes her look away as he works his pyjama pants down – not politeness.

Luka manoeuvres himself carefully into the bath and sits up in the hot water. It makes his whole body feel like Jell-O. And when Abby kneels beside the bathtub and starts to soap his shoulders and back, he barely has the energy to move away.

"Abby – you don't have to," he tells her.

Abby rocks back on her heels, looks at him, questioningly. "Do you want me to go?"

And Luka doesn't say anything. No – he doesn't want her to go. Of all things, he wants her to stay. He just feels guilty, that's all. For being a burden, for forcing her out of medical school, for making her do all these things for him – for making her worry.

When he stays silent, Abby picks up the flannel again and washes away at his back deftly.

"I'm a nurse, Luka." He hears her voice murmur by his ear. "I've done this a million times."

A nurse – yes, a nurse, he thinks. A nurse who yearns for something more.

He sits there lamely and lets her wash his body as he stares straight ahead at his legs that float out in front of him. They seem distant, dead – almost not even attached to him. His eyes open and shut on their own and the steam from the water rises.

"I'm sorry," he says suddenly – out of the blue. His own voice sounds alien to him and his head feels not-quite-right.

"Sorry?" comes her reply as she rinses suds from his skin. "For what?"

But he doesn't answer.

Some time later – Luka doesn't know how long – Abby is draining the water from the bathtub and he's lying back on the smooth white enamel, still warm and wet. His eyes wander over to gaze up at the window and the blue sky outside, distorted by condensation. His head feels just as foggy and, as he observes water running rivulets down the glass, all the muscles in his body tense up.

"Come on, Luka," Abby's voice sounds somewhere. "Let's get you back to bed now."

And Luka's teeth begin to chatter.

- o -


	6. Theories Of Perception

**Disclaimer: They're not mine**

**Spoilers: None past Season 10's "Dear Abby"**

**Pairing: Luby**

**Rated: T or PG-13, to be safe.**

**Summary:****Luby Set mid-season 10. Luka, sick with malaria, comes home.**

**Good day, one and all! I hope you've had an excellent summer. Sorry for the delay on this chapter – I've been away in Chicago :) Anyway, here it is. And I'd like to thank all of you kind folks who reviewed the last chapter – AmYkYo, Breakthefloor22, 42-Sporks-, Calaforniagirl2, Lalala, Virva, Jemiul, CarbyLivesOn, xEllax (thanks! I did!), Peaky, twinmuse, Kat.D and Bianca (not at all, your English is very good!). Really though, so many of you leave so many truly brilliant reviews and I really mean it when I say thanks for it. But on we go – Chapter Six. Enjoy! Love LJ xXx**

- o -**  
**

**Kisangani Dreams. Chapter Six. Theories Of Perception**

- o -

"_There is no rational knowledge beyond what is disclosed by the phenomena of perceptions. Mind is no more than a bundle of perceptions."_

PHENOMENALISM (MY PHILOSOPHY NOTES)

- o -

Friday night.

On the subject of malaria, Luka's old textbook – Manson's Tropical Diseases, a relatively untouched hardback from a secondhand bookstore – had this to say: _In the P. malariae species of infection, relapses of fever, delirium and the other symptoms associated with malarial infection tend to occur once every 72 hours._

So, on day three – a Friday night – when Abby's curled up on the couch in her living room, fast asleep – Luka starts to dream.

He can feels his heartbeat hard. He can hear it, forcing the blood through venules, arterioles – rushing in his ears. And, when he opens his eyes, he can _see_ it, even. He can see his own heartbeat, throbbing like a dimmer switch in an already barely-lit bedroom. Nighttime.

Nighttime in Kisangani, Congo. That's why it's so hot – a sweltering, sticky heat – he's back in the Congo. Or he never left. He can't remember. Christ, it's hot though. Luka sits up in bed, the sheets sticking to his body with sweat, and pulls back the mosquito netting from around his bed. His legs swing themselves over the side of the bed – he peers unsteadily down. Someone's taken his shoes.

"Not funny, Carter," he mutters in the dark – but smiles and shakes his head anyway. Christ, it's hot. And when did the Congo spin around his head like this? It must be some new thing. It isn't helping much – not with his heart beat throbbing behind his eyes. In fact, it makes him feel a little dizzy.

He pulls himself standing.

No, wait – scratch that. It makes him feel _very_ dizzy.

He ought to complain.

But he doesn't and, instead, stumbles awkwardly about the room, thinking – _Christ. It's hot_. He stops when he reaches the mouth of the tent – it has a metal door handle today, for some reason, so he turns it and finds himself outside.

It's pretty dark. He squints in the darkness, wondering what he's looking for – and stands very still. The floor still feels like a sheet of elastic beneath his bare feet, for some reason – not solid packed dirt like he was used to. Kisangani was turning strange. His heartbeat throbs across his vision and then, standing still, he is sure he sees another one beating somewhere.

Stand still.

Stiller.

Yes – that rustling wasn't just the wind waltzing through the dried grass, it was someone breathing somewhere nearby. Well that was stupid – you don't want to sleep outside in the Congo. You'll get bitten. You'll get malaria; Luka's heard it's not a nice thing to have.

He takes a few more shaky steps forwards and notices that second heartbeat, rippling across his sight – converging with his own pulsating heart – getting stronger. Luka strains his weary eyes in the darkness until he makes out a familiar figure, curled up in the grass of the Congolese outdoors. He leans closer and frowns. Abby?

"Abby," he croaks. Abby sleeps on and his hand hovers over her shoulder, wanting to wake her. "Abby – you shouldn't sleep out here." He lays one hand on her shoulder – his hands are heavier today for some reason – his whole body heavy. And, when he touches her shoulder he realises just how hot his own skin is. "Abby." He shakes her gently. "Abby, come back to the tent – you'll get sick."

Abby wakes up suddenly and sits up on the couch. She stares at him like he's crazy. Luka finds that funny – after all, he wasn't the one to fall asleep on the ground outside in Kisangani.

"Luka? What?" she utters blearily.

"Not safe, Abby," he tells her. "Come back to bed."

Instead, Abby's mind clears and she presses the back of her hand to Luka's forehead.

"You're cold," he says. He stands up straight and sways. His legs feel wrong.

"Jesus, Luka," Abby gasps. "You're burning up."

He sits down heavily on the floor – his legs no longer able to put up with himself on top of them. Abby looks distinctly concerned.

"I'm going to get the thermometer and then we may have to call County," she says – more to herself than to him as she walks towards her bedroom.

"No, Abby – stay," Luka calls after her, but she's already disappearing back into the tent. He can't walk – he doesn't know why. He wishes she'd come back.

And then an odd thing happens. Odder than his spinning world – odder than Abby sleeping in Congolese grass. All of Luka's limbs seize up with a strange kind of electrical rigidity. His teeth clench – either voluntarily or involuntarily, he isn't sure.

"Abby!" he tries to yell out between his clamped jaws. His whole body begins to shake violently – flailing like a wide-eyed fish, slapping against the deck of a fishing boat, mad with confusion in a dry world. And then… then he doesn't remember.

When Abby comes rushing back into room, she finds Luka fitting on the floor.

"Oh God, Luka."

The words just fall from her mouth and she kneels by him, moving the couch and coffee table away from Luka's wildly thrashing limbs and cushioning his head with her blanket.

"Luka, I'm so sorry," she whispers as his body jerks and convulses and she dives for the phone.

And she dials for the ER, she finds tears in her eyes and is furious that they're there. She wanted to be a doctor, for Christ's sake – how can she cry and despair at a fitting patient like this?

Because the patient is Luka, that's how. Because it's Luka and she should've been taking care of him and – God, she didn't know what she'd do if anything happened to him.

Abby stares up at the ceiling and bites her lower lip, fighting away the tears that run down her cheeks anyhow.

"I wish, I wish we had some diazepam." She murmurs in a strange, silent prayer as Frank picks up the phone at County. It almost makes her sob to hear his same old composed nonchalance down the phone line – why couldn't she have let Luka stay at County? County General Hospital – where they had the resources, the staff, the support to help him through this faster and better than she could on her own. Whatever made her think she could do it?

"Hel_lo?_" Frank repeats when he gets no reply.

"Frank," Abby finds her a voice – sounding stronger and steadier than she feels. "Frank, it's Abby. Get someone to send an ambulance to my place for Luka. He's fitting and his fever is through the roof."

She tries to hold onto Luka who's still convulsing madly – terrified he'll hit his head badly on the wooden floor. Christ, if anything happened to him…

"What's his temp?" comes Dr. Chen's voice as the ER desk phone switches hands and Abby remembers dropping the thermometer by the bedroom door when she saw Luka fitting on the floor – she couldn't even take his temperature properly.

"Just send an ambulance – please," she repeats firmly and hangs up the phone before Chen can ask any more questions.

As she puts the phone down and exhales deeply, Luka's body falls limp back down onto the floor – calm and still. Suddenly, it's the stillness that scares Abby more than the seizures. She touches his face lightly, thinking – _Oh God. Oh, please be okay. Oh God, oh God, please._

"Luka? Luka – Luka, wake up – please be okay."

Luka's eyes flicker open and he focuses on her, leaning over him.

"Stay with me, Abby," he says to her. "Stay."

She smiles slightly, cradles his head in her lap – _Thank God he's okay._

"I'll stay, I will – you stay with me, too," she whispers. "An ambulance is coming, Luka. You'll be okay."

She strokes his cheek – the burning skin – with her fingers and presses a kiss to his temple. "I'm so sorry."

Luka squeezes his eyes shut against the throbbing, distorted and feverish world but still, in all the madness, gets three words out.

"Not your fault." He assures her, and means it. Abby looks at him, pale and thin – and wishes that she could've been better for him.

- o -


	7. This Time

**Disclaimer: They're not mine**

**Spoilers: None past Season 10's "Dear Abby"**

**Pairing: Luby**

**Rated: T or PG-13, to be safe.**

**Summary:****Luby Set mid-season 10. Luka, sick with malaria, comes home.**

**You guys must be so sick of me starting these things going, "Oh, I'm so sorry for how long this took…blahblah…" – and then taking just as long the next time around. This must be the record though ; I've taken ages with this! And I truly am sorry – but you have no idea how busy I've been. Basically, the short version is that something pretty cool happened to my writing 'career' – for want of a better word – and, as cool as it's been, it's been seriously time-consuming. So this chapter is a bit longer for compensation. I hope you like it, I hope you love it.**

**And as ever – thanks to my loyal reviewers, you're excellent! That's thanks to, Kat. D, breakthefloor22, Jemiul, Peaky, xEllax, HumanShield, Bianca, 42-Sporks- and twinmuse. These reviews as always remind me just how much I owe it to you guys to keep this going! Thanks very much. Enjoy! Love LJ xXx**

- o -**  
**

**Kisangani Dreams. Chapter Seven. This Time**

- o -

"_If I kiss you where it's sore, will you feel better...? Will you feel anything at all?"_

REGINA SPEKTOR

- o -

This journey is much more bumpy, Luka considers as he rattles, strapped to a gurney, in the back of an ambulance. His eyes sting and ache whenever he chances opening them to the bright white electric lights, clinging onto the underside of the ambulance roof as it hurtles through the inner city Chicago streets. Empty streets – 2am.

Abby doesn't say a word as the paramedics strap heart monitors onto him and take his vitals. She just sits beside him and holds his hand so discretely that neither of them are even aware of it. Luka notices, though, at the last minute, as the paramedics yank him sharply out of the ambulance into County General's parking bay out in the suffocating summer night and he feels the palm of his left hand suddenly cold in her absence.

"Luka Kovac," Dr. Chen's crisp voice sounds from somewhere above his head. "Welcome back to County."

She reaches over him and takes his chart from the paramedics. He doesn't see that, though – eyes closed against the night – and, together with the paramedics, Abby and other curious coworkers, Jing-Mei Chen leads Dr. Kovac back into County General hospital – gurney wheels clattering along the tarmacked ambulance bay like the dodgy casters of an old K-Mart trolley.

"What's his temp?" Chen calls out to the paramedics as they roll him along.

"110," comes the sharp reply.

Abby falls back from the gurney, stunned for a moment. 110 degrees? How did that get so high so fast? She stares after the gurney carrying Luka as it continues through the ER doors and away down the halls. She had been totally clueless about the whole thing. How…? The gurney turns a corner and rolls out of sight down the corridors.

Abby runs to catch up.

-

The lights overhead are so strong that Luka's eyes burn and water. He can't keep them open for very long and it makes everything even more confused.

"It's alright, Luka," Dr. Chen tells him calmly. "The malaria just developed a resistance to the chloroquine – we've both seen it happen. We're just gonna put you on something stronger, okay?"

He nods an okay and feels a pinch at the crook of his elbow as Jing-Mei puts a different IV in. IV primaquine – he feels it slip, ice-cold, into his vein. Stronger, he can feel it, this is stronger. Within a few minutes, Luka feels himself foggily slip out of consciousness once again – more gently this time, more controlled. In that brief second of clarity between fading away and blacking out completely, a tug in his heart wonders where Abby went.

He hopes… he hopes she isn't blaming herself.

Abby watches at the door as Luka, attached to a fresh bag of IV primaquine, falls back unconscious. Shit, she thinks, why the hell did she have to insist on taking him home with her? He wasn't a goddamned abandoned pet or something. _Je_sus!

The temping nurse appears at Abby's side as she gazes in through the window.

"Mrs. Kovac – you can go in and sit with him if you like," the nurse offers.

"Hmm?" Abby starts suddenly, before realising. "Oh, no – I'm not…" she begins to explain before being cut off by someone calling down the hall.

"Abby?" Susan Lewis smiles and heads down the familiar corridors towards her. Abby puts on a smile and draws in a breath.

"Hey Suze," she greets.

Susan glances in through the window at the unconscious Dr. Kovac lying in an ER bed. Then she turns back to Abby and touches her shoulder lightly, "How are you holding up?"

"Me? I'm fine," Abby answers. "It's Luka I'm worried about."

Worried – yes, Susan can tell that much from the frown heavy on her friend's face and the smudgy dark shadows beneath her eyes. Susan bites back the urge to tell Abby to give herself a break. She wanted to help her friend – make her see what she saw - but Abby was stubborn, like John Carter was, and she was determined to carry through everything she started.

That's another reason why she and Carter lasted so long – through the grit and determination to make something of a month, two months, five, a year. It was a test of endurance, every time they fought with each other and saw their own worst qualities reflected in each other's eyes. It was a competition, to see which of them could continue to love after another shouting match. Their love was furious, bitter and then, finally – over. They left each other reeling, quiet and empty.

"Just don't forget to take care of yourself, okay, Abby?" Susan decides upon saying, lightly.

"Yeah," Abby mutters distractedly and Susan follows her gaze back to Luka. Abby sighs. "God, Susan – I really let him down."

But Susan shakes her head quickly, "No – Abby, you didn't." She tells her firmly. "Listen, this would've happened anywhere, and you really looked after him – he wanted you to and you did."

Still, Abby bit her lip and kept her frown. "But if he'd been here, then at least…"

"Listen, Abby," Susan cuts her off. "Luka's still gonna be out cold like this until tomorrow afternoon, at the earliest."

"I know." Abby answers shortly, her eyes fixed on the man in bed. Susan pauses – she hadn't taken the hint.

So she persists gently, "Well, maybe you should head home and get some rest, Abby, don't you think?"

Abby says nothing, but turns back to Susan – blinks her tired eyes once, twice.

"You know, so you'll be okay to take care of Luka again…" Susan tries.

This time she gets a response, and Abby quickly shakes her head. "Oh no," she says. "I don't think it's a good idea to trust me with Luka anymore. I'll only screw it up again."

"That's not true."

Abby rolls her eyes, "Susan –"

"Abby." Susan interjects sharply. Pause. She looks at Abby hard, honest – "That's not true." For once, Abby doesn't try and prove her wrong again, doesn't try to insist her own incompetence.

"Besides," adds Susan, after the silence. "Everyone in this building knows that Luka only wants you to take care of him. Ask him tomorrow – he'll still want you."

The words, "_That's not true"_ flash through Abby's mind again, but she doesn't voice them. Instead, she shivers beneath her coat and stands there in the silence. She hadn't had time to change before rushing out with Luka and the EMTs and, anyway, it had been the last thing on her mind. So she stood there, cold under the ER's over-zealous air conditioning system, with her baggy pyjama t-shirt and shorts beneath her coat.

She sighs.

"Maybe you're right," she says. "Maybe I should go home."

And she doesn't take that last glance through the exam room window at Luka Kovac; she doesn't think she can handle looking at his pale, thin face, unconscious on his pillow again.

-

Susan was right about one thing – she did need to get some rest, in a major way. As soon as she unlocks her front door and falls into the empty – achingly empty – apartment, she stumbles towards her bedroom and collapses into bed. It isn't until she's lying on her bed, staring at the same ceiling Luka's stared at for days, that she realises that she hasn't slept in this bed for a while and, not just that, she hasn't changed the sheets after Luka.

She can still smell him on the sheets. Not a bad thing, she considers sleepily, before the more lucid part of her brain demands to know why she thought that. She didn't know why – she just liked it, that's all. It was comforting, somehow. She missed him, even.

This is getting into dangerous territory, Abby – she tells herself, hazily. You can't start falling for Luka all over again. This was supposed to be a platonic thing. A friend-helping-friend thing. A friend, a friend.

But – what with the lingering sense of Luka lying on these sheets just hours before and the stuffy heat crawling around the room – when Abby drifts off to sleep, she start to dream, starts to remember – the height of summer 2001, and a busted air conditioning system in Abby's apartment.

-

_When she comes home from a late shift at work, Abby can already hear loud, angry Croatian coming from the bedroom. A smile touches her lips; she couldn't understand what he was saying, exactly, but she would've bet money on some kind of four-letter word. _

"_Luka?" she calls into the apartment. "Forget it – the air con people are coming on Thursday. It probably needs new parts or something; you won't be able to fix it."_

_There's silence as she kicks off her shoes and gets a drink of water from the kitchen until Luka emerges from the bedroom with a small smile on his face._

"_No harm in trying, right?" he offers lightly. "Especially as long as you're not letting me get anywhere near you in this weather."_

"_I never said that!" Abby protests. Luka raises his eyebrows._

"_Last night, I think you said – 'Touch me and I'll kill you'." He tells her and Abby can't stop the grin crossing her face. She takes a step closer to him, wrapping her arms around his neck and kissing him softly._

"_Well, I…" and then she stops – it's far too hot, pressed up close to him – and breaks away. "Sorry!" she says. "It's just that it's 100 degrees outside! Sex just seems like the worst idea right now!"_

_Luka shrugs his shoulders, though, unperturbed. "I thought you might say something like that," he answers calmly. "So…" and he takes her hand, leading her into the bedroom._

_What she sees inside their bedroom makes Abby burst out laughing – electric fans, standing ones, table ones, rotating ones, packed in every corner of the room and networks of wires leading out to various power points, whirring and turning like a crazy miniature army. _

"_This is insane!" she laughs. "How…?" Luka shrugs again and fails to hide his smile._

"_There was a sale on at Sears," he says, as though that explained it. "What do you think?"_

"_I think…" she begins, wandering about the room – it was a lot cooler than it had been last night, and the night before that – nights spent pushing Luka away and trying to sleep in the Chicago heat-wave. "I think it'll do just fine."_

_Abby kneels on the bed and pulls him close, and, this time, stays close. Later that night, she'll lie awake – Luka, asleep, still holding her tightly – and listen to the fans, like the sound of a thousand toy helicopters shuddering, and smile – happy, for once, to just be there with him._

- o -_  
_


	8. Crossing Wires

**Disclaimer: They're not mine**

**Spoilers: None past Season 10's "Dear Abby"**

**Pairing: Luby**

**Rated: T or PG-13, to be safe.**

**Summary:****Luby Set mid-season 10. Luka, sick with malaria, comes home.**

**What a disaster! I possibly couldn't have been slower at forcing this chapter out – by far the worst. I don't know why it was so goddamned difficult to write. I think I painted myself into some form of literary corner and couldn't get out of it without a horribly awkward and stilted chapter. So here you go! Hopefully the next one will be more fluid and less god-awful. **

**I've gotta thank you guys for the reviews, though. I definitely owe you a better chapter than this one, so I'll get started on the next one. In the mean time, this will have to do, and I'll be thanking, HumanShield, Colbykid, CarbyLivesOn, Peaky, LLF, breakthefloor22, xEllax, AmYkYo, 42-Sporks-, Kat.D, elohimdancer319, lubyforeverx711 and Bianca. Thanks for your kind words – bear with me on this one, aaaaand – Enjoy! Love LJ xXx**

- o -**  
**

**Kisangani Dreams. Chapter Eight. Crossing Wires**

- o -

"_Loyalty means nothing unless it has at its heart the absolute principle of self-sacrifice."_

WOODROW T. WILSON

- o -

The phone ringing by the side of her head, at half past one in the afternoon, wakes Abby up – feeling blindly for the phone.

"Hello – Abigail Lockhart?" a clear voice runs through the phone line, and Abby has a hard time placing it.

And her words are slow in returning – "Uh…yes?" It came out in a ragged croak.

"Dr. Lewis asked that I call you once Luka Kovac woke up and he is awake." The voice explains.

Oh – the voice of a nurse on the general ward. And not the voice of someone who'd just woken up, either. Ugh… Abby frowns and then reluctantly opens her eyes to squint at the digital clock on the bedside table. What time was it?

13.30? Her eyes open wide now and she sits upright in bed. She hadn't thought it was that late.

"Okay… erm – okay, thanks," she stumbles back and then puts the phone down before she even gets a response back. How did she manage to sleep so long? She sits on the edge of the bed – the sheets tangled in her feet – and she pinches the bridge of her nose between her fingers, her hair hanging down and rumpled. She can't help but get that feeling that a lot of things in her life were crumbling away before she had a chance to even try to stop them.

With a long sigh, she stands up and heads into the shower – not even realising that she'd slept the whole night in that double bed, sticking regimentally to just one side of the bed, as though someone else was meant to be there beside her.

-

Luka opens his eyes when the door handle clicks and smiles to see Abby slip in through the door. She puts on a grin and holds up a small duffel bag that she places quietly – almost tentatively – on the bed. Tentative – which is weird, for Abby, who was never tentative with him, not since she'd first kissed his cheek on the bench in the ambulance bay all those years ago. Something must be up.

But all she says is, "How are you feeling?"

"Better actually," Luka can honestly reply. "Almost good."

She holds the smile, but it's been stuck to her face for so long now that it doesn't look right.

"Good," she says quietly. "That's good."

A long silence. She hovers at the end of the bed; Luka attempts to sit up straighter – to see her better – but gives up when the rustling of the bed sheets is too loud for the heavy pause. He wants to say something – like, "I'm sorry," or "Don't worry," – but his throat's too afraid to break the silence.

Abby does it, anyway.

"I screwed up," she blurts suddenly, bitterly. There are so many things that Luka wants to say in response to that, that he can't say anything at all.

She waits and then sighs at the silence – she _knew_ it. Susan was wrong.

"I just panicked…" she goes on "...when I saw you like that." Abby lowers her eyes slightly. "Didn't know what to do." Speaking broken, slowly – waiting for a reply. When Luka still doesn't say anything, her words rush out and tumble over each other.

"Which is stupid, yknow, because I must have dealt with a thousand situations with patients seizing and coped just fine – but you were there, on my living room floor, and I just couldn't do anything useful to help you."

"You did help." Luka manages to interrupt finally, finding some words to say. Abby stops – for a second – and starts again.

"No, Luka, I didn't. I panicked."

Luka shakes his head. "Abby – this would've happened anywhere. The malaria developed a resistance to the chloroquine; it's happened before and if it was going to happen to me, it would've happened anywhere." He pauses.

"I liked staying with you, Abby." He tells her quietly. "I liked you being there."_ If only it hadn't cost you your place among County's medical students…_

She doesn't say anything then – takes a slight step closer, sits on the edge of his bed and smoothes the already immaculate hospital sheets. Her hand lingers there, on the bed sheets, until Luka reaches out with his own hand and touches her gently. Abby doesn't move her hand back – doesn't move at all – but she doesn't look at him when she says,

"Still, maybe it's best if you stay here until you're ready to go back to your own place."

"No, maybe you're right," he says, thinking sadly of the letter he'd found on her table, of her quietly excited confession on that first night she came to visit him. He had never wanted to be a burden.

But Abby blinks then – looks up at him almost involuntarily – and Luka realises that he's hurt her.

"Not because of this," he adds hurriedly, trying to patch it up a little too late. "You didn't do anything wrong."

"How do you know that?" Abby bites. "You were fitting on the floor – you couldn't see me, standing there totally useless. I didn't even think to clear space around you until you'd been like that for a few minutes."

"Abby – this isn't about that," Luka cuts in. "It's not that." He takes a breath. "You were going to go to med school. I heard you on the phone, canceling your loan. You're not going back and it's because of me. Because you had to look after me. And I never wanted to do that to you. I didn't want to be that guy."

She looks surprised. "What guy?"

"The guy stopping you from getting where you want," he explains. Luka studies his hands in his lap, wondering the best way to phrase the next part and, when he thinks of something, looks straight at her, saying, "I never made you happy when we dated. You deserve to be happy, and you looked happy that night, telling me about going back to med school…"

"I didn't have enough money anyway," Abby mumbles an excuse. Luka doesn't buy it.

"You'd have found a way," he tells her, certain.

The silence washes over them again and Abby sits at the end of his bed, sunk into the mattress at his feet. She traces her fingers over the rivets in the hospital blankets.

After a pause, a thought occurs to her and she says, "I wasn't unhappy."

"Huh?"

"I wasn't unhappy when we dated," she tells him. "You did make me happy. You still do. I just… I was never much good at holding onto what was good for me."

She hears her own words and says nothing; sits up straight and snatches her hands back to lie in her lap. Too personal? Too personal. For god's sakes – here was Luka, ex-boyfriend, close friend – recovering from malaria, rescued from her apartment floor, and she can't stop thinking about how she misses him, how she's sorry and couldn't they, couldn't they start this whole mess again?

How inappropriate.

Abby shivers unconsciously. This was so stupid. She just _had_ to make everything about herself, didn't she?

She stands up suddenly, awkwardly.

"Well – I brought you some spare clothes, and if there's anything else you need... let me know," she states and lingers undecidedly between Luka and the door. Then she makes a choice – rushes a smile, a quick "Get well soon", and she walks out of the room.

Luka sighs deeply and shuts his eyes, furious at himself. Since when were words so hard to come by? When did he _ever_ hold back from saying what he wanted?

"I need _you_." – why couldn't he have just _said_ it? But he didn't. He just lay there in bed staring dumbly at her. And then she left, shutting the door behind her.

Abby didn't return that day; Luka drifted slowly off into an empty sleep.

- o -


	9. A Collection Of Things I Didn't Say Or D

**Disclaimer: They're not mine**

**Spoilers: None past Season 10's "Dear Abby"**

**Pairing: Luby**

**Rated: T or PG-13, to be safe.**

**Summary:****Luby Set mid-season 10. Luka, sick with malaria, comes home.**

**Holy crap, I'm sorry. I can't believe how long this has taken me and if any of you guys can actually still remember that this story exists, I'll count myself very lucky. Why is it that I can suddenly reel out ten chapters of a CSI Grissom/Catherine story within a week and yet this chapter has been so crazily slow? I don't know. It's been a minor disaster, I think we'll all agree. **

**I'd like to thank the last chapters reviewers, Peaky, HumanShield, AmYkYo, xEllax, Bianca, CarbyLivesOn, twinmuse and Real Dream Nirom in the hope that you'll forgive me for all this waiting, and still enjoy – and remember – this. I will keep going with this. I promise, I will finish this. I will. But for now – Enjoy! Love LJ xXx**

- o -**  
**

**Kisangani Dreams. Chapter Nine. A Collection Of Things I Didn't Say Or Do**

- o -

"_Happiness includes chiefly the idea of satisfaction after full honest effort. _

_No one can possibly be satisfied and no one can be happy who feels that in some paramount affairs he failed to take up the challenge of life."_

ARNOLD BENNETT

- o -

Luka didn't see Abby again after she left that day, he didn't get quite so many visitors this time around. Luka supposed that pulling the malaria stunt and winding up back at County twice in one month got a bit old after a while; he wouldn't have minded so much if Abby at least had turned up.

But she didn't, not the next day, or the day after that – and Luka lay there, slowly getting better, slowly feeling worse. Dr. Petersen came back to him on the third day, a thin sheet of cheap printer paper in his hand with his blood work results from that morning. When he told Luka Kovac that he was well enough to be discharged that afternoon, and asked him how he felt, Luka lied and told him,

"Good. I feel good."

And felt the words, hollow lies, sink stale inside him.

So Luka Kovac is sat on the edge of his bed, fully dressed in clothes that hang – baggy on his thinner frame. And he sits beside a packed duffel bag with clothes that Abby brought him the last time he saw her, waiting for the porter to come in with a wheelchair. It feels lonely. He'd never thought it were possible to feel _lonely_ in a place like County General.

A knock on the door – thank God.

"There's a cab waiting for you downstairs, Dr. Kovac," the porter says with a small smile. Luka's head rolls forwards and then backwards in a kind of nod on a weakened neck. The black wheelchair – "CG Floor 5" written across the back in adamant white-out – wheeled close to his bed, Luka exhausts himself transferring from the bed to the chair with frustratingly weaker limbs.

-

"Where do you wanna go, sir?" the cab driver glances at Luka in the mirror. Jesus – this guy looked sick – all hollowed and creepy. The cab driver hoped it wasn't catching, whatever he had… That was the risk you ran when picking up people from County.

Luka stares, morose, out of the window for a while at a grey Chicago. Then he inches to the edge of the cab seat and gives the cab driver an address which, in his address book, is written very neatly under the name, "Abby Lockhart".

-

Outside her apartment block, the driver watches Luka drag himself out of his seat and walk with painstaking slowness towards the sidewalk. After a moment, he winds down the window and, leaning out, calls to him.

"Hey – do you need a hand or something?"

Luka looks back and smiles slightly. "No, I'll be fine," he tells the cab driver confidently. The cab driver doesn't look convinced but shrugs his shoulder and rolls the window up again.

"Whatever you say," he mutters to himself inside the cab and drives away. Luka looks up the steps to her building and, finding strength from somewhere other than his wasted muscles, he pulls tightly on the duffel bag slung across his shoulder and begins to climb the steps to the lobby.

Luckily for him, when he reached the door to her building – one of her neighbours, leaving, held the door open for him with a bright smile as he stumbled inside. He didn't know quite what he'd say to Abby yet and at least, he thinks, he'll have time to find some words on the elevator ride upwards. A simple, "I love you," would never be enough for Abby Lockhart – especially since she'd grown to mistrust those three words more than any others she'd heard in her lifetime. He had to be better than that.

He leans his head against the back of the elevator wall and shuts his eyes, thinking as he makes his steady ascent to Abby's.

-

Abby is cleaning out her closet when Luka knocks on the door. In the past three days, she'd gone through all of her old letters and magazines, every expired food product in the kitchen, all of the out-of-date phone books that she'd just shoved underneath a shelf – and thrown it all out. Somewhere at the back of her mind, she knew that all of these were classic techniques for avoidance, but she never liked listening to that part of her mind anyway.

When Luka sees Abby's front door finally swing open, there's a bin bag full of papers in her hand and a surprised expression on her face.

"Luka – what are you doing here?" she asks.

The whole ride up in the elevator, and the best he could come up with was – "I got discharged today. I wanted to talk to you."

Abby puts down the bag with a rustle and runs her fingers through her hair.

"Oh, Luka – you should be at home resting," she tells him sadly. Luka winces slightly. _'At home'_ hadn't failed to hurt.

"I know… I know," he says. "But I wanted to talk to you. There are some things we need to go through."

She sighs. "Luka, I don't even think that _I_ have the energy for this – I doubt that you do."

"Okay," he replies. "Okay, then we don't have to talk. But can I at least come in? You can't exactly turn down a recovering malaria patient who's just walked up five flights of stairs to see you."

Abby's eyes widen at that and she looks horrified.

"Jesus, Luka!" she says and ushers him inside.

-

Once he's sitting on her couch with a glass of water in his hand – once they're sat together in a comfortable silence, Abby finally asks,

"Why did you take the stairs when we have an elevator?"

A smile crosses Luka's lips for a second. "I didn't really walk," he says. "I just couldn't think of another way to get you to listen to me."

She opens her mouth, about to yell at him, but she notices the paleness of his skin and the gauntness of his face and decides to hold back this time. Instead, Abby sighs slightly and watches him stare into the bottom of his glass. Without looking at her, Luka continues.

"You're probably going to say no, but I came here to ask you if I could stay with you. Just for a while?" Luka asks quietly. "Petersen keeps telling me I'm getting better, but I don't feel any better. The last time I felt anything other than sick was with you." He glanced at Abby then, to gauge her reaction and added, "I was never very good at holding onto what was good for me either – but I'm trying to improve."

Abby looks at him closely and then shrugs her shoulders in an attempt to be nonchalant.

"That's a good idea," she says. "I think I'll try it, too."

And she offers him a small smile before reaching out to wrap her fingers around his hand, and hold it tightly. Luka breathes a laugh, without knowing what he's laughing about, and lets his worn-out body collapse into the sofa. He closes his eyes and concentrates on the feel of her hand around his – like remembering something beautiful that he thought he'd forgotten a long time ago – and finally, exhausted with the day, falls asleep.

- o -


End file.
